Dark Parallels
by Kain Vixenheim
Summary: A collection of drabbles, marked as complete, as if Byakuran Gesso was Ryou Bakura.
1. A Throne Built Upon Corpses

**A Throne Built Upon Corpses**

 **Byakuran Gesso sits upon his throne before his final battle with Vongola, looking back on the world he threw away. Bakura would have been proud of how far he had come.**

* * *

Byakuran sat, waiting. In only a half hour this would all be over, one way or the other. Not that he really believed that Vongola could win. In all the dimensions they had fought in the past, Tsunayoshi had never managed to overcome him. He doubted this would be the first time.

It wasn't even as though the Vongola had ever been the most difficult part of his goal. No, that position was taken by his old friends. That was right, the infamous Byakuran Gesso had once had friends. Back before he had been Byakuran Gesso, back when he had been Bakura Ryou.

Yuugi had never seen it coming. Why would they have? He had just been the shy boy acting under duress at a 5000 year old tomb robber's command. They had never given thought to what Bakura's influence might have done to him as a child. What the Thief King may have cracked throughout those long years of friendlessness.

Cracks that the Mare Ring had shattered wide open.

It had been easier than he had expected to take a knife to Yuugi's throat in the boy's sleep, to let his good friend bleed life blood into his hands as he smiled manically. But then, it had always been the Pharaoh to stop Bakura. Yuugi had no command over the shadows.

Yuugi's friends had been just as pathetic. Not one of them suspecting for a moment what lay behind the mask of Bakura Ryou. Only he hadn't really been Bakura Ryou anymore. He had become Byakuran Gesso. A boy who had gone on to slaughter all those people he had felt companionship with. Even if he could no longer command the shadows.

Kaiba Seto had burned for his insolence. Burned in that steel tower he so loved. Burned in the orange flames of the Mare Sky Ring.

Katsuya Jonouchi had been easy enough to trick. Mad over the deaths of his best friend and Kaiba he had been all too willing to be tricked into an abandoned park and killed. Amazing what he would do blindly just because Byakuran had said he had information on their killer.

Hiroto Honda had fallen for the same trick as Katsuya, and was burned till there was nothing left of him but ash upon the breeze. To this day he was still listed as a missing person.

Once he might have gone to Malik, asked the old enemy of Yuugi to help him. But not this time, his alternate memories showed him that for all the Egyptian had claimed to be loyal to him, in the end he would betray him to Yuugi. If he was to have a traitor at his side, then Sho-chan was much more useful.

He had made his darling treacherous Sho-chan kill those damn Ishtars to prove his loyalty to Byakuran and his Famiglia. The silly boy, not knowing that he was destroying the only people left that Byakuran considered a threat for nothing. Like he would ever trust someone who betrayed him time and time again across countless dimensions.

When his Bastard father had visited for the first time in years at the news of their deaths Byakuran had killed the man just as he had killed Yuugi. Only this wasn't the clean slit of the throat. No, he had stabbed his father in the chest over and over again. Long past the time when life faded from the man's eyes. Cackling madly the entire time.

Byakuran Gesso's throne was built with the corpses of Bakura Ryou's friends and family, and he could not be more pleased.

What were the bodies of a few more?

Vongola was nothing.

Soon, he would show them.

Soon, Vongola would fall.


	2. Looking Back At What Has Yet To Come

**Looking Back At What Has Yet To Come**

 **They lost. Only now it never happened. Byakuran finds himself in his old bedroom, before he ever hurt his friends.**

* * *

No! How could he lose? How could he let that stupid little Vongola win! This was supposed to be his last step! Vongola weren't meant to be a threat! He couldn't die here!

Only he wasn't dying. His body was whole and healthy. If a little small.

What?

... Where was he?

Glass cabinets filled with figurines lined the walls. A large game board taking centre stage in the tiny apartment.

That's right. He was home. In his room. What was he thinking? What a strange dream to have, why would he think his name was Byakuran? He was Ryou.

But, why did he have these memories? What was going on?

He massaged the Mare ring upon his finger, sorting through the images in his mind. It felt like when he had first put it on, memories that weren't his flooding his head, desperately trying to cling onto his sanity for weeks on end.

Only that hadn't worked had it? He'd failed and snapped and killed. Except now everything was fine.

Had that happened? Was it real?

Did his friends remember too?

Even if they didn't, could he bring himself to face them? Friends he could remember killing even if it had yet to happen. Even if it would not happen anymore.

That little Vongola. Hadn't he lived in Japan? What was the name? Oh yes.

Namimori.

Ryou or Byakuran, or whatever he was calling himself now popped a marshmallow into his mouth as he sat in the back of the public bus.

He had never really eaten marshmallows before, preferring his delicious cream puffs to the gorgous white sugary goodness that was the marshmallow. Only now he was craving them all the time, unable to go without for more than an hour or so.

The bus stopped and Ryou's thoughts paused as his eyes flicked up. Byakuran grinned.

He hoped the little Vongola wasn't expecting him. That would make this so much more fun.


	3. Whatever Happened To Anzu Mazaki

**Whatever happened to Anzu Mazaki?**

 **Because I was reading back through my works, realized I hadn't done anything to her, started thinking, and started writing this.**

 **I think it actually fits how Byakuran might have been thinking.**

* * *

Looking back at it now, Byakuran couldn't really say why he had not done anything to her. It was not that he had liked her. She had never paid him enough attention for that, always following Yuugi and her Pharaoh around. Too busy with them to really give him the time of day past his possession. Past any danger he might have posed to Yuugi and the rest of their little gang.

But Kaiba had all but ignored him as well, so why had he gone after the businessman but not her?

No matter how he looked at it, Byakuran found it so strange. He had all but forgotten her existence from the moment he had lost his mind. Even now it felt hard to focus on her, like she was just completely unimportant.

The vast majority of his other selves had left her alone as well. Only the ones who lost themselves to blind rage had laid a finger on her.

Such a useless girl like Anzu. She never managed to harm his rule in any way. She never even bothered to tell anyone that she knew the real identity of Byakuran Gesso. Maybe it was that, maybe it had been the lack of a threat that she presented to his plans.

A mirthless chuckle escaped Byakuran's lips. Perhaps he was simply a gentleman? A gentleman murdering Mafia Boss. What a joke. It wasn't as though he hadn't hurt women before. The same women, many times over. So really, that couldn't have been it.

It could have been all of those things combined into one. After all he never made any moves without multiple reasons for doing it.

And yet . . . Yes, that could have been it. In fact, it was the most likely of all the reasons he could think of. He couldn't be certain though, it was far too hard for even him to know what exactly had been his old self's motives. He could only guess.

But he had killed the others for revenge. Revenge for overlooking him once they had finished ridding the world of Bakura.

It only made sense that he had left Anzu alone for that very same reason.

The girl had thrived with her friends. Lived for them. Anyone could tell just from listening to one of her speeches how much she depended upon them and loved them, and unlike the others Anzu wasn't a threat if she was left alone.

The cruellest thing to do to someone like that was to take her friends away from her, ignore her. All but tell her that she was nothing to him.

Byakuran had left Anzu be because for her, that was a fate far worse than mere death.


End file.
